Attorney General Pam Bondi has reportedly directed the creation of a grand jury investigation into allegations that former President Barack Obama and his team sought to gin up intelligence to create a narrative of collusion between Donald Trump and Russia during the 2016 presidential election.
Fox News revealed Bondi signed a one-page order on Monday instructing a federal prosecutor, who was not identified, to take evidence to a grand jury. A Department of Justice (DOJ) spokesperson told the news outlet the attorney general is taking a Russiagate criminal referral sent by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard “very seriously” and believes there is a “clear cause for deep concern.”
🚨BREAKING NEWS: @AGPamBondi signed an order directing a GRAND JURY to investigate an “alleged conspiracy” in the Russian Collusion Hoax saga.
Here we go. pic.twitter.com/TdXmTFAAhP
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) August 4, 2025
A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment when The Daily Wire reached out, seeking comment on the report from Fox News. It had been known that Bondi previously had initiated a “strike force” tasked with evaluating the evidence relating to the Obama administration’s efforts to drive the Russia collusion allegations in response to various documents that were being disclosed to the public.
Just who might be named in the criminal referral was not clear as of press time, but Gabbard and now-President Donald Trump have been heavily critical of people such as Obama, former FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan, and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper over the creation of an intelligence assessment released in early 2017 and the “Crossfire Hurricane” FBI investigation into alleged Russia collusion.
“There’s no question in my mind that this intelligence community assessment that President Obama ordered be published, which contained a manufactured intelligence document — it’s worse than even politicization of intelligence,” Gabbard told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo in a “Sunday Morning Futures” interview that aired last month. “It was manufactured intelligence that sought to achieve President Obama and his team’s objective, which was undermining President Trump’s presidency and subverting the will of the American people.”
Fox News reported that no charges or indictments have been filed as of Monday afternoon. The news outlet also emphasized how details of the grand jury, including where it is located and who may appear before it, were shrouded in secrecy.
Obama has pushed back on claims that his administration abused intelligence.
Patrick Rodenbush, a spokesperson for Obama, released a statement last month that said the “bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.”
However, scrutiny is mounting after the disclosure of records that indicate Hillary Clinton may have approved a Russia collusion hoax against Trump during the 2016 campaign to distract from her email controversy. In addition, it was revealed that former special Counsel John Durham found the Obama-era FBI appeared to ignore intelligence that indicated Clinton’s campaign, its supporters, or Russian disinformation fueled allegations of ties between Trump’s camp and Moscow.
Top national security veterans from Obama’s administration rejected assertions of a “treasonous conspiracy” associated with the Russia collusion fiasco.
“The special counsel John Durham, who was appointed during Mr. Trump’s first term to investigate how the Russia probe was conducted, similarly found no evidence of an Obama administration conspiracy against Mr. Trump,” Brennan and Clapper wrote in a New York Times op-ed. “But he affirmed the findings of the special counsel Robert Mueller, who conducted a separate investigation into the allegations, which found ample evidence of Russian interference in the election.”
